LPG Jeepney for cleaner public transportation?

[ghosthunter]

Is Auto-LPG a possible answer for cleaner & cheaper public transportation?

Well, maybe not cheaper for the riding public but the cheaper cost of fuel might be a good incentive for PUV/PUB transport companies to take another look at LPG as a viable fuel.

Although not really viable as a direct replacement for diesel in large vehicles (like buses), LPG can be more applicable for smaller vehicles to replace current vehicles like the jeepneys and FX-shuttles.

The plan may not be as "radical" as the electric jeepney but this is more viable as the vehicles themselves will not be replaced by INFERIOR substitutes with many unmentioned but undeniable shortcomings.

Simply put, replace the fuel with LPG.

Of course you can not use LPG in diesel engines so the best option is to start from the source. Make a jeepney (or similar vehicle) that will use an engine that will use LPG as fuel. Make the engine simple so that even ordinary mechanics can service them. Use common engines as a base so parts will not be difficult.

[ghosthunter]

http://www.mademan.com/mm/toyota-lpg-cars.html

[SIZE="4"]Toyota LPG Cars[/SIZE]
By: Victorino Sianghio Jr.

The best Toyota LPG Cars are cars that are made by Toyota and run on LPG, which is an acronym for liquefied petroleum gas. This type of gas is said to be more environmentally friendly because it is cleaner burning.

1. Toyota Camry Altise V6 Automatic/Ateva V6 Automatic. This Toyota LPG car on its Camry line of cars is outfitted with a Quad Cam V6 engine, which is compatible with LPG technology for cleaner burning fun. This special LPG engine from Toyota itself is a 3.0 Liter one and also includes special fitted valves along with valve seats. It is so easy to convert from normal fuel to LPG that all it takes is automatically reaching a certain level on pre-set RPM and temperature values.

2. Toyota Avalon Advantage/Conquest. The Toyota Avalon Advantage/Conquest range of LPG cars from the company features the LPG-conversion kits. These kits were devised by Toyota and Apollo Gas and ensure that your new, environmentally friendly Toyota car has maximum fuel efficiency, reliability, performance, and driveability. This fuel system was designed by Toyota itself to its own engineering standards. Another bonus is that Toyota's great warrant of three years/100,000 kilometers also applies to these newer LPG models of their cars.

3. Toyota Town Comfort LPG. The Toyota Town Comfort LPG car is a car that is used by Toyota exclusively in Hong Kong. So far, there have been three models: the YXS10, the LXS10, and the latest one, the YXS11. This LPG car by Toyota is also used as a taxi sometimes, and its engine is an L4 DOHC 16-Valve VVT-i Engine.

Posted on: Jul. 20, 2010

[ghosthunter]

I posted the following in another thread but I think it deserves to be re-posted here...

...

The idea is there for anyone (including yourself) to grab and turn it into reality.

Previous (government sponsored) attempts of doing LPG-Jeepneys have failed because those were converting existing jeepneys to run on LPG. Previous efforts also suffered from the usual PGMA regime financing corruption which cut the number of jeepneys that were supposed to be converted.

The difference here is it will use an engine already meant to run on LPG from the start.

All the Auto-LPG refueling stations are available in the metro.

It wouldn't be far off to use an affordable Suzuki Multicab shuttle with an engine converted to LPG as a testbed for a more wider adaptation.

The general success of LPG-fueled taxi cabs is an indicator that LPG is a possible way for public transport to save money on fuel as well as go a bit greener.

[ghosthunter]

I mentioned of possibly using Suzuki Multicab units as a possible vehicle becuse these are cheap & plentiful. P150,000 is already enough to get you a unit. Maybe a budget of P50K about be enough to convert it to a PUV type which can hold ten to twelve people in the back and make it run on LPG as well.

So for only P200,000 for each vehicle, you can have a PUV that is cleaner & cheaper than the standard PUJ. It would be faster than a certain electric golf cart used by Makati and definitely will not have a 60km daily range limit and will not need an eight hour recharge every day. All that is needed is to locate the nearest convenient Auto-LPG station, which is not a big problem in Metro Manila.

If this proves cheaper to run than the standard PUJ, it could start a gradual phase out of the standard PUJs off the road as drivers/operators shift to this LPG fueled option.

[ghosthunter]

http://www.hk-phy.org/energy/transpo...y_print_e.html

The Hong Kong government plans on replacing all diesel taxis with LPG taxis by the end of 2005. By the end of 2003, about 18,094 LPG taxis were operating on the roads, representing over 99% of the whole fleet. The replacement of diesel taxis with LPG taxis helps improve the air quality in Hong Kong.

So if we replace diesel PUJs with LPG PUVs, the air in Metro Manila can actually improve (if sufficient numbers of replacements are done).

One way to achieve such a goal is a legislation of government to accelerate owners/operators of PUJs to move towards LPG. Tax exemption or even tax credits for early adopters may also help.

Another way is to make LPG PUVs exempted from the traffic coding scheme.

[ghosthunter]

http://www.hk-phy.org/energy/transpo...y_print_e.html

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) vehicles

Liquefied petroleum gas vehicles e.g. LPG public light buses and LPG taxis produce much less pollution than diesel vehicles. Table 2 shows the results of a comparison of diesel public light buses with LPG light buses. You can see that LPG produces much lower emissions and particulates. This is a major improvement compared to diesel.


Table 2: Test results comparing diesel with LPG public light buses
Mode.............................................. Pollution Reduction Percentage
.................................................. ...of LPG Light Bus Compared with
.................................................. ...Euro III Diesel Model
Hydrocarbon + Oxides of Nitrogen....... 51%
Carbon Monoxide............................. 87%
Particulate..................................... Very low emission from LPG Model
Smoke........................................... No black smoke from LPG Model

[ghosthunter]

http://business.inquirer.net/money/t...pney-at-a-time

[SIZE="4"]Cutting down smog a jeepney at a time[/SIZE]

By Chupsie Medina
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:53:00 10/01/2009


PETER SANDOR prefers to be known as an agent of change.

He has rolled up his corporate sleeves to do battle with what seems to be an irresolvable pollution problem that jeepneys, notwithstanding their iconic status as cultural symbols, continue to pose to the 12 million inhabitants of Metro Manila.

One jeepney at a time, Sandor stresses.

This is the battle cry of Formula Juan, an out-of-the-box solution that Sandor has pieced together with the help of World Wide Fund for Nature-Philippines and Ecos Environmental Foundation Inc., plus the creative energies of his staff at Bates 141 Philippines, of which he is CEO.

Six months into the Formula Juan campaign, the scorecard reads 6:55,000. This implies that, theoretically, there are 54,994 other jeepneys on the streets spewing deadly exhaust emissions against six.

But for Team Formula Juan, the tide has already turned. The optimism they express is buoyed by the realization that they now have a winning solution that is both sustainable and workable.

Infamous list

Admittedly, says Naderev Saño, WWF-Philippines’ head for Climate Change and Energy Program, the Clean Air Act that was passed into law in 1999 had failed to eliminate the monstrous mess created by second-hand diesel engines powering Philippine jeepneys.

Manila is still on that infamous list of being one of the more polluted cities in Asia.

It does not help that jeepneys are a source of livelihood for more than 350,000 families, not to mention the unquantifiable value of being a tourism peg by a government bent on attracting foreign visitors to the country.

Vehicles that belch health-threatening smoke and black soot are barely apprehended. Worse, second-hand diesel engines junked in many countries that have more stringent road environmental standards continues to find their way on our roads.

“You can buy an emission test nowadays,” Saño laments.

But with Formula Juan, Sandor believes that the jeepney’s pollution-inducing days are over. The prescription they have come up with is not aggressive or threatening to jeepney drivers, and will even mean increased earnings.

When a colleague introduced Syuichi Tajima, Ecos Foundation secretary general, to Sandor, the original idea of converting the jeepney’s diesel engine to run on the cleaner LPG fuel was ruled out.

“It’s not technically feasible, unlike in gasoline engines,” Tajima says.

Engine replacement

What was technically possible though was to replace the whole worn-out diesel engines with relatively newer LPG engines. Many Asian countries have vehicle engines that are originally designed to run on LPG, and they have been proven to be more energy efficient and kinder to the environment.

Adopting this route though would have meant incurring costs no jeepney driver could afford.

Armed with more than 20 years of experience in the advertising world, Sandor devised a win-win situation that could earn the support of firms, particularly those that nurtured a deep conviction toward helping solve societal, including environmental, problems.

In a sense, Abbott Laboratories was the perfect pilot endorser. The drug firm was a client of Bates and, being on the lookout of new advertising media, found value in the project as an innovative way of making the public more aware of its product while supporting the Formula Juan advocacy.

It took a couple of months for the first jeepneys brandishing LPG engines to roll out into the streets, decked with no less than the bright orange and vermilion colors of Cecon, an Abbott vitamin product.

When the first three jeepneys made their appearance in the Bel Air, Makati area, they became a hit, especially with other jeepney drivers, after initial reports that the reconfigured jeepneys boosted earnings twice over.

Two more jeepneys were deployed in San Juan, while a sixth plied the Ayala-Zapote route.


Straightforward ads

The Cecon murals are straightforward advertising messages, but Sandor is looking at developing the right design mix that will keep the jeepney culture alive while still making clients happy. There is also scope to use the jeepneys as media to convey the Formula Juan movement so that people would choose to support the movement by riding participating public utility vehicles, and even buying the products of supporting companies.

Being a man who believes that something can be done to keep jeepneys on the road without sacrificing people’s health and the environment and forcing jeepney drivers out of a livelihood, Sandor is busy making sales pitches to more companies, even the many business chambers.

Still goal

It’s a stiff goal he has set, a hundred jeepneys converted this year. But even if he thinks he won’t be able to accomplish what he has set out this year, there is still next year, and the year after that.

“The passion to keep the streets clean … will always be there,” he declares.

Later, Sandor and his associates were able to refine the pricing policy to make it more attractive to corporate advertisers as well as media buyers.

With the new participation rates, using jeepneys as an advertising vehicle becomes increasingly competitive when compared to other advertising media, more so especially since Bates 141 is doing the ad design for free.

WWF will treat the cost of advertising as donation, and Ecos, a non-profit organization, will provide the technical expertise.

“If other organizations, companies or advertising agencies want to copy what we’re doing, we would be extremely happy,” says Sandor.

Ten more companies doing what Team Formula Juan is doing will definitely make the task of converting 55,000 jeepneys in Metro Manila easier.

Those interested in joining the race for cleaner air through Formula Juan may get in touch with Pete Sandor. The Bates 141 office is on the 27th floor of the Ayala Life-FGU Center, 6811 Ayala Ave., Makati City. You may also call (632) 8121141.

[niky]

Conversion of the existing vehicle infrastructure is too costly. But it's possible to convert older gasoline vans to LPG for potentially lower running costs than similar diesel vans.

That would be gasoline L300s, Mazda Powervans, etcetera.

Big problem is that most of these gasoline vans are gas-guzzlers... so savings may be marginal.

The only place where LPG would be a no-brainer is in taxis. Because diesel taxis carry a big price premium over gasoline taxis... whereas the "price premium" for LPG is only 20-30k... and it can be retrofitted to old taxis, whereas it's difficult to retrofit a gasoline taxi with a diesel engine.

-

One solution that's not talked about too much is using methane (from methane processing plants using garbage) to directly power diesel engines or waste vegetable oil being used for small fleets (though this is not easy to implement on medium or large scales).

[ghosthunter]

Conversion of the existing vehicle infrastructure is too costly. But it's possible to convert older gasoline vans to LPG for potentially lower running costs than similar diesel vans.

That would be gasoline L300s, Mazda Powervans, etcetera.

Big problem is that most of these gasoline vans are gas-guzzlers... so savings may be marginal.

The only place where LPG would be a no-brainer is in taxis. Because diesel taxis carry a big price premium over gasoline taxis... whereas the "price premium" for LPG is only 20-30k... and it can be retrofitted to old taxis, whereas it's difficult to retrofit a gasoline taxi with a diesel engine.

-

One solution that's not talked about too much is using methane (from methane processing plants using garbage) to directly power diesel engines or waste vegetable oil being used for small fleets (though this is not easy to implement on medium or large scales).

I was thinking of fleets of Suzuki Multicabs with their sub-1 Liter gasoline engines converted to run on Auto-LPG.

Those things are cheap to buy, easy to maintain and carb type auto-lpg conversion is cheap too. Replacing the gasoline fuel tank with an Auto-LPG tank would be straight forward as well.

You can have THREE Multicabs for the price of a single Jeepney.

[niky]

That's a double-edged sword. It gives you less overcapacity per vehicle on off-hours (Jeepneys are ridiculously large) but increases incidental yearly costs such as registration and insurance (not that PUV operators actually care much about insurance...).

I've met taxi operators who've had good experience with replacing single compacts (Corollas) with multiple mincars (Prides) with good results. Even if the Prides break down, they don't all break down at once, and despite the lower boundary and profit per unit, profit for the given capital is higher.

Multicabs have lower capacity, and the narrow bodies might turn off passengers (same problem you noted for the E-Jeep). A multicab converted from cargo variant to an FB style with a wider passenger cab might work... but I don't know how the numbers for this will work out int he real world. Fuel economy is already slightly better than a full-sized jeep... around 6-8 in traffic versus 4. The Jeep has higher capacity, but the LPG should balance it out on the fuel equation. Then you consider that multicabs won't be targetted by pollution cops...

It's an intriguing idea... wonder if our government is flexible enough to consider it...